What course are the A380 crew going to do when they eventually come back?

BAK? :hmm:

Maybe the risk analysis coupled with TRE feedback at training meetings has finally made them nervous?

I haven’t thought about flying an aeroplane for close to 12 months now. I certainly haven’t opened a manual. I’ve had better things to do, namely focus my efforts on my family and the people who now pay my salary. It’s going to be interesting to see how things go if and when I get back to work.

my thoughts exactly

The PPP is aimed at crew who are standing up once every 4-6 months. IE those that still want the flying when it comes around. For those who have been stood down longer than 6-7 months (IE, those who have opted out of flying completely because of their new employment status), they do the new training courses as now outlined in the TACM whenever they decide to stand up and fly.

I know that from the discussions I’ve had with a few different people the LWOP aspect hasn’t even rated a mention. They were in fact quite conscious of the impact the PPP would have on people’s employment. Various iterations were being considered including it being just a weekend thing that people could fit in around their employment or be able to do whilst just taking an extra day or so off from their current work. Of course stupid lock down rules complicate things considerably and I don’t know how or why it ended up as the current system.

To suggest it’s intent or even secondary effect is to force people onto LWOP? I think that just demonstrates once again that pilots tend to jump at shadows.

I fear this year will feel longer and harder than last year as frustrations over what is occurring (or not occurring) increase. The PPP has already increased the level of angst for some as they work through what it means from them without more information. Theories such as the above will only increase the level of angst for some.

Be nice to each other. Take care. Happy New Year to all.

During our restructuring meetings with management it was voiced to us that Flying Operations were disappointed that flight crew were not keeping up with online courses, downloading manual updates etc, they put out several emails suggesting people use the 'break' to bone up on manual and SOP knowledge. I was amazed that they were surprised how when people are not getting paid they didn't want to carry out work tasks. Now I know there are some aerosexual's out there who get off on reading manuals but personally I do work related stuff when I am at work, if I am not working or being paid I don't even open my Company Ipad. I had no issues going back after 6 months, but do they really expect us to carry on with work related tasks when we are stood down on no pay?

Have a look at the 787 list of flyers. Plenty of those in Capt/FO ranks haven’t touched the controls since March ‘20, and not through their own choosing. It just simply hasn’t reached their number on the list. They have no choice but to obtain secondary employment but would obviously also like to be kept current. The longer it drags on, the stronger the ties become to their new employer and many will be less likely to bend over backwards for QF.

The whole thing is a can of worms. People may be jumping at shadows about the company’s motives, but we’ve already seen during the pandemic how keen they are to force the LWOP option onto people to save a few measly bucks.

No objections to your first paragraph TL. I understand that. I’m hopeful and quietly confident that the aims of the PPP are honourable and won’t disadvantage people who aren’t able to organise the time off their new employment to do it. I’m also hopeful that they may be able to sort out some flexible arrangements/ modes of delivery for it.

However, if those further down the list (who haven’t flown yet) are able to take leave from their secondary employment to stand up and fly for a month, wouldn’t that mean they’d able to take leave for the PPP also?

As a side note, no one was ‘forced’ onto LWOP. Many on here advocated strongly against taking it unless you had something else up your sleeve already.

How about “coerced with the threat of compulsory redundancy”? :hmm:

Speaking of which, where is normanton...? :p

Not that easy. My secondary employer has advised that there are no more AL slots available until the new FY. I can’t just take leave when QF want me to. I suspect many will be the same .

Regarding the FSO my manager basically said since I’m only stood down I can be recalled with 14 days notice for the PPP. If that’s unachievable then my options are LWOP.

The big problem comes when leave is not available from your secondary employer, perhaps due to length of service or staffing levels. Do you risk that full time job which will see you through the next year, for what is effectively now a casual position at QF offering one month of work every so often? And from a financial perspective, the secondary employment might pay poorly which means the need to stay “attached” to QF in order to dip into leave as required, especially once JobKeeper ends.

Qantas wants all the flexibility in the world, but aren’t willing to pay for it. It can’t go on like this indefinitely.

It would be an interesting argument whether an employer has the right to demand an employee complete a duty which then results in mandatory quarantine.

There are various human rights that protect an individual from being detained including for the case of disease control. I understand that a crew member may be prepared to waive these rights if they wish to work however I’m not sure that an employer could enforce a work contract that would, as a result of crossing a border whilst working, create a situation where the employee is forced into detention thereby having their human rights breached.

If anyone knows the answer I’d love to hear it.

Exactly right

This is 3rd wave , it will be devastating and there will be lay-offs .
The QF group will rebuild slowly and off the street over the next few years , and will be on a if you don’t like it leave contract ! As long as they don’t go broke !!

We look after a severely immunocompromised close family member, if I am forced to stand up that will result in travel to anywhere there is community transmission and/or involves subsequent quarantine, I will direct them to my lawyer. If they say fine, go on LWOP, I will direct them to my lawyer for discrimination as every other pilot under the agreement has not been directed to take LWOP. I don't see how they can direct some to LWOP whilst leaving others just stood down. If they want me to come back to work, I will come back full-time as per the agreement, else I will stay stood down. I will take LWOP, if every single stood down pilot takes LWOP.

The The I think you will find you are not “stood up” your stand down is cancelled and you would be required to return to work as per your contract. If you didn’t wish to return to work then you would have a few options; a) take annual or long service leave, b) take LWOP, c) resign. The company can’t force you to do any of the above (they may suggest it’s in your best interest) but if you are not taking any of those options you will have to do what you are contractually obliged too or face disciplinary action. No conspiracy there just how they would see it.

I believe ultimately it would be more complex than that or otherwise you’re a casual employee not a full time permanent employee as the concerned individual is.

Rather than jump at shadows, how about we do the right thing here by engaging firstly with your Base Ops managers re your concerns. After that, having taken some notes as to their response to your concerns, engage with the AIPA exec re any ongoing issues.

If you’re LH yeah I’d be bloody worried. SH will come back hard again all this will be knocked on the head by March in time for Easter holidays.

Knocked on the head by Easter? Wasn’t that the plan for Xmas?

Are you honestly confident in this not occurring again and states being locked down? Same risk, same result.

It was also the plan for the June and September holidays last year.

NSW will have it sorted by end of January, another 3 weeks for states to get confidence then we go again like I keep saying this will be here for years just need for rest of Australia to wake up accept it and let Gladys be the covid commander of Australia. Oh and this is a disease that is so deadly that a lot of people don't know they have it or had it. I can vouch from personal experience.

As long as VA are breathing down AJ neck he will not give an inch, Rex well that will be a pile of mess JQ will get Tiger share and what ever Rex thought they had.

As much as I am a fan of Gladys I am finally relived she has made mask mandatory should have been done with the Casula but this will speed up the process now. With that and NSW being the best in the world at this it will be knocked on the head quickly. All the doubters out there just look at what happened with the Avalon, Casuala, Picton etc etc etc NSW the only state capable and has proved it all whilst taking in the most internationals although that is the time bomb that will go off again. WA, like to see you have a go!

Victoria I don't have confidence in and the newly appointed Covid commander what a joke that guy is resign now mate, fancy not having the first line of defense armed and ready to go at a moments notice he should have had an army of testers on STBY ready to go but nope they turned them away due to being overloaded.

NSW tested over 40,000, 45,000, 55,000 60,000 in one day I think 35,000 today no one was sent home yes long waits but all were tested.

This isn’t getting knocked on the head until the vaccine uptake is at a level to allow herd immunity and widespread removal of restrictions. The current Federal Government plan for that is October.

Of course it could be much, much faster, Israel has already vaccinated over 10% of their population in just 12 days. They are planning to get to the required level to be over the pandemic in March, before any Australian has received a Covid vaccine here.

At the speed Morrison is moving on a vaccine, we’ll probably be better dealing with vaccinated international pax before the domestic scene sorts itself out. But I guess they still need to determine if vaccinated peeps are contagious.

This whole “we don’t need to move fast on a vaccine as it’s not a big problem for Australia” narrative needs to change.

Edit: Beat me to it Dre

Apologies to the moderators as it’s off topic. Victoria have sequenced all cases back to the initial NSW cluster and have no mystery cases to date. NSW aimed to nip it in the bud by Christmas Day and didn’t.

Something for management to use their decades of influence gaining in government to push for? Company could offer free transport of the vaccine into and around the nation in exchange for an expedited rollout.

Oh please you really want to play the blame game! Two Victorians started the crossroads outbreak in Sydney by bringing their strain up genomic testing proves this which was announced by John Barilaro 14th July.

The issue is Victoria should be prepared (like all other states) they are not. If you think we can eradicate this and get back to normal pinch yourself and wake up. It’s not going anywhere.

I don’t think anyone is blaming NSW. I certainly am not. I was a big fan of Gladys’ decision making up until this outbreak- I wish she threw every defence (within her control) in the early stages. That free hit was masks, AMA said they should be mandated. You admitted it yourself it was a good move to implement (3 weeks later). Don’t start me on SCG test. I love cricket but WTF?

Would have masks actually made a difference? Who knows, but we won’t die wondering.

Once again, no consistency across the board.

My biggest concern is the incompetence of Vic Govt dealing with another clusterf@“k. Let’s all cross our fingers- most Victorians are justifiably nervous and pissed off that we are in a position of uncertainty again.

I agree with Green Dot on all points. Yes mask should have been implemented when Crossroads happened my opinion hindsight is a good thing. I just read an article in the Australian QLD health have done the same, CMO requested citizen to be tested if you had been in Vic they turned out in thousands to be told to go home as it was knock off time 21:00.

What is happening now is what AJ was concerned about end of last yr he can’t run a airline that operates with open/closed borders. Let’s hope drastic measures are not taken with domestic crews.

So, 2700 tests done in Qld yesterday with 76 sites operating,thats less than 40 people per testing site & the qld health minister says people must look around if they get turned away due to no capacity for a test.
Vic tested 22000+ and Nsw over 30000 i believe so in reality,what state isnt prepared??
Easy to criticise but dont just throw it all in 1 direction & like i have said before the hotel quarantine was a complete f up as was the cruise ship debacle in sydney but just maybe some states are flying under the radar right now as the focus is again on the 2 most populated states.
A bit like the 2 people who fled from melb airport the other day-they were confused they say🤔

Victoria tested 22K on Saturday (more than NSW did) but were essentially at capacity.

NSW just had lower demand on Saturday, not capacity issues. I think they did more than 60K in the days before Christmas.

DHHS performing an outstanding job at letting people know what is going on.

I may well be wrong but not all of those 76 sites offer free testing. Brisbane's major public hospital, RBWH, had long queues on Saturday (when people were sent away at 9:00pm) and Sunday, however friends of ours who returned from country Victoria were able to get a test, at a small cost, at another facility with minimal wait time.

NSW also have another cluster that has escaped from hotel quarantine yet no outrage. Imagine if a transport worker in hotel quarantine had let the virus out in Victoria?

Probably no outrage as it hasn’t exploded in to 3 digit figures a day because NSW has their finger on the pulse.

But anything’s possible. If NSW turns in to a high numbers outbreak, businesses beyond the point of no recovery, etc, people will be enraged and be looking for answers, don’t you worry about that :ok:.

Oh and Gladys didn’t blame the average New South Welshman in an initial attempt to cover up the real reason for the outbreak. She isn’t like Dan.

Long testing lines and media coverage is why McGowan just throws the key away for 14 days. Protecting his March 13th poll.

If you have been free in the community for 10 days before being told you must now isolate what’s the difference in a mandatory test - isolate until result.

My mate in WA says most of the QF base is in isolation after Mad Marks latest.

Crikey theres some revision of history going on here. The grief at Victoria back in June wasn’t just because Victoria had crap processes that allowed the virus out of HQ with not very significant cases to manage, it was more about the crap process to contact trace and nail down the virus. Here we are a further 6 months down the track and Covid testing centres are shutting shop at 0930 because they’re at their daily capacity. That doesn’t strike me as a very proactive, efficient government.

It would seem though that the discussion about QF Group redundancy numbers and packages is kinda done though?

I really hope you’re correct Keg (as you often are) but personally I can’t help but think when referring to the entire QF group that the redundancies aren’t finished yet.

Yep agreed- a sh!t tin of revenue during the most lucrative time of the year has been lost. The domestic cash cow has not delivered this time round and management were banking on it.

Yeah, you could be correct NGsim.

Network won’t need to VR crew given they’re still trying to attract both 717 and A320 drivers.

Eastern or Sunnies are probably ‘right sized’ at the moment also.

That leaves JQ and I know very little about their crewing numbers. The only thing I can see them over stocked with would be 787 drivers. I’d also expect their age demographic to be very different tot mainline though so wonder if they’d get a decent uptake of VR if it were offered. I suspect not? They also may decide it’s cheaper/ easier to go CR from the bottom if they need to shed some numbers. If the 787s end up not returning then those crew would mostly find a natural home in the A321ULR which will no doubt be the replacement jet for some of the previous 787 routes.

JQ has a very young demographic 40ish 787 captains FOs even younger. If there are any CR at JQ it will be SOs first then 78 crew and it won’t be bottom up on the list, the way it’s in the EA they can do it how they please “Seniority will be a major consideration” I’d guess the 320 crew at this stage will be fine.

Not necessarily. In May last year after this had just started, with Domestic capacity at 5% and International effectively at 0% guidance was released showing cash reserves with flying at that level could last until December 2021:

Qantas Group Market Update

Now since then we’ve had some increase in domestic travel, not as much as hoped but still more than 5%. I’ll hazard a guess a lot of those tickets bought were full fare as well. We’ve had a strong FIFO market offering additional income. We’ve had government funded IFAM and repatriation flying. Some large corporate customers have switched from VA to QF. Loyalty remains cash flow positive. And we’ve had Jobkeeper extended beyond it’s initial end date. It sounds tough but outsourcing of some jobs will have a positive effect on cashflow too. The saving grace has really been stand down clauses.

Share price is around $5.00 after both the current NSW and Victorian outbreaks, still above the $4.20 it was at the start of November, and the highest at anytime since March. The company still has an investment grade credit rating.

Probably the only large cash burn currently is redundancy payouts, and they’ll mostly be all paid out over the next few months. Something tells me they wouldn’t have paid out all those redundancies unless they were sure cash reserves could lasted far into the future until a vaccine arrives.

So I’d guess the cash burn is now at a position where reserves could last well into 2022. Add to that the reopening today of booking availability for most international services from July 2021. I guess that can’t have been made on a whim, it would have had to have a deeper knowledge of the vaccine rollout plan than what’s being told to the general public as management certainly would know how cautious Australian governments are about outbreaks. And they wouldn’t be looking at re-opening bookings for most international services if they didn’t expect most domestic services to be operating as well.